Indians 5, White Sox 3: Quick work for Kluber

Give credit to the White Sox for making louder contact against Indians starter Corey Kluber than they usually do. Daniel Palka roped a signature 106 mph home run in the sixth inning, and Omar Narváez followed with a towering shot of his own. Yoán Moncada had a couple of hard hits. Even Ryan LaMarre smoked an outside fastball down the right field line for a double.

By normal robot standards, you could say the Sox wore Kluber down a bit. But even around that solid contact, he still managed to strike out 12 batters and allow just three runs through eight innings of work. Terry Francona let Kluber pitch deep into the game on six days of rest, even with a two-run lead, and the former Cy Young winner rewarded him with another win, and all in just 2 hours 25 minutes.

Carlos Rodón was having an okay night, but he ran into trouble in two innings. In the second, the Indians opened the scoring with a walk, a Melky Cabrera double, a hit-by-pitch, and a Yan Gomes single. Jason Kipnis ended the inning with a double play, but he got his revenge with a home run leading off the fifth. Then Tim Anderson almost made a great scoop, spin and throw against Francisco Lindor, but for the whole “throw” part, which bounced into the dugout.

After a groundout, Rodon plunked Jose Ramírez in the arm. After a scary review with the training staff (during which Wimpy’s microphone picked up a curse word), he stayed in the game, stole second, and scored on a single back up the middle by Yandy Díaz.

That made it 5-0, and it looked like another blowout at the hands of the Indians. The Sox got back into it late with the two homers and a Yolmer Sánchez RBI double to make it 5-3. However, they just couldn’t capitalize against Kluber. He threw a lot of nasty pitches, but the Sox kept swing, swing, swinging and helped him out when he was too far from the strike zone. Adam Engel looked particularly bad, with six swinging strikes outside the zone and three strikeouts.

Andrew Miller came on to pitch the ninth and looked like his old self, allowing one duck snort and striking out three.

Other Stuff

• Rodon struck out only one batter—Yonder Alonso in the sixth—to go along with seven hits, three walks, and two hit batters.
• Nate Jones somehow pitched a scoreless eighth. After a leadoff walk, he gave up two screaming liners, a stolen base and throwing error, and then finally got a strikeout.
• Welington Castillo pinch-hit for Engel in the ninth. He also struck out, but reached first when the ball got away from Gomes.
• After Ramírez was plunked, Wimpy got in an uncensored curse under his breath.
• The Sox are now 3-11 against the Indians this year, and have been outscored 78-37.